


Storybook Dreams

by Satelesque



Series: Afterlight and Spinoffs [2]
Category: Hazbin Hotel (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Childhood Friends, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Introspection, Navel-Gazing, Perceived Betrayal, Prophecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-16 05:14:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29570883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Satelesque/pseuds/Satelesque
Summary: “Would you like your fortune read, dearie?” the demon said, but Goldy hesitated.“Why are you helping me?” she asked, and the fortune-teller laughed.“Oh, no, silly girl, no.  There's not a drop of demon's magic in the world that's ever been more help than harm.  Not unless someone else paid the price.  Do you still want to see?”Those words couldn't have been truer, but she followed anyway.
Series: Afterlight and Spinoffs [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2172501
Comments: 9
Kudos: 5





	Storybook Dreams

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustASandwich](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustASandwich/gifts).



> This is a spinoff of Afterlight, the first fic in this series, and it won't make much sense if you haven't read it. Which you should. I promise it's good!
> 
> I'm sorry.

Goldy muttered under her breath as she walked down the street. “Brown, brew, bring, break, breath,” she tried to say, but it came out wrong. “Bown, bwew, bing,” until she grit her teeth and swore. Years of practice, and she kept making the same mistakes. Even now, when she could finally hear what she was doing wrong, her tongue refused to listen. Almost as if it was trying its hardest to make up for the rest of her.

It was yet another dash of perfect irony. Here in Hell, her ears were gone. In their place were feather-covered holes in the sides of her head, but without them she could finally hear.

It wasn’t much use at first. She’d heard the sounds but hadn’t understood, even as the first demons she met were yelling down at her, loud and slow and terrifying. Even then, it was all she could do to recognize the shapes of their sharp-toothed mouths.  _ “What _ is your  _ na-y-muh?” _

They wouldn’t know sign, and her hands were frozen at her sides anyway, so she bit her lip and thought back—ages back to when her parents hired a linguist to teach her how to talk. It’d been a hopeless, vexing endeavor that everyone involved had been glad to abandon. They’d all known she couldn’t hold verbal conversation even if she could speak, and it was infantilizing when even after she pulled out her notebook, people still talked—or wrote—down to her. As if she wasn’t simply mute but brain-dead too.

Perhaps that had been the turning point, the moment it all went wrong. Their words remained in her notebooks, a testament to everything they thought she couldn’t be, and as she flipped through, she’d scowl and crucify them in effigy. Their echoes would feel firsthand her mastery of language, even if it was too late and too fictional to matter.

But those notebooks were lost to her after her fall. She had no pen, no paper, and no choice but to force the sounds out. “G— Gul-o … or-ie—” she’d stuttered until the demons understood her struggle if not the word itself. They’d stepped back, looked from the panic in her eyes to her brow furrowed in concentration to her dandelion-yellow feathers, and made the choice for her. As demonic nicknames went, Goldy was far from awful, and it was easier to pronounce than her old one. No matter how much she practiced (“Glass, glare, glint, glow, glum,”) the sound still eluded her. Why God had seen fit to reincarnate her as a songbird would remain a mystery for the ages.

Those first few days might easily have been a hell of their own, but she’d known the rules better than most recently deceased, and her newfound friends offered her a couch to sleep on. It was scarcely more than a week before she marched into the biggest news office in the city with a letter of introduction, a writing sample, and a resolute stare. She’d kept her lips pressed tight, and within an hour she’d been waved over to work part-time with the editors. Provisionally, they said, but it wouldn’t be the worst handicap they’d dealt with, courtesy of their new bodies. Provisionally, they repeated until she knew the word better than her own name, but it hadn’t taken long to prove herself. The click of typewriters soon made the office a second home, far more than the closet—or what felt like one—that she rented from a coworker.

The clatter of keys became yet another sea of noise in her life. It should have drowned her like the others—like the bustle and shouting that constantly pressed against her ears now—but instead its shores were welcoming. Its tides ebbed and flowed with the sound of words, more fitting than any voice could ever be. Its clicks were precise. Purposeful. Her fingers pressed down and released with the familiar weight of hammers and levers—mechanisms concrete and orderly but intricate enough to be art, a perfect fit for an instrument of writing. Repeat hundreds of times and she’d have an article, thousands and it’d be a story. Goldy’s hands had always been her gateway to the world. Not even death or hearing could change that.

And so Goldy worked, and with every day that passed, her closet grew more familiar. She’d been practicing her sounds, but it was slow going. The blessings of youth—that sheer capacity for learning new tongues—were long since lost to her. She taught herself to speak in steady, precise patterns she’d been told sounded refined but that still took all her concentration.

It was enough to get by, but meaningful dialogue remained out of reach. She refused to be talked down to, but rare were the demons patient enough to put up with her notebook. Going out was an exercise in frustration, and spending her evenings in bed with a good story was a familiar life. Her closet grew cramped with stacks of pulp magazines and penny papers, threatening to make the place feel like home. Months later, she finally accepted that it might as well be. She’d been of an age to move out before the end; she’d simply traveled farther than anyone intended.

It was a precious, fragile hope, that ‘farther than anyone intended.’ She read aloud to distract herself from it, to keep it safe and unconsidered at the edges of her consciousness. There was no time to think back when she was busy trying to wrangle her own tongue and do market research besides. She’d have a new audience here, and she had to learn their tastes. In Hell’s pulps, the villains of the story won, or else they were brutally murdered in retaliation. The split was roughly even, marketed to two opposing audiences and a third that was only there for the violence.

Goldy had smiled thinly at the realization. It was one she could work with. Villains, victims, and sadists. She knew all of them all too well.

But the last thought was too close to cracking that precious hope, and she returned to her reading, pushing it back to the fringes of her mind where it could only bother her in dreams. She’d wake in the morning, pull on her skirt and jacket, and walk to work early. She’d spend the day in a sea of words, then take her time walking home, letting the wash of voices keep unwelcome thoughts at bay. They meant nothing but trouble.

Words were the perfect distraction, and there was another of those tricky combinations—the ‘ch’ into ‘r.’ “Trouble, tricky, trap, true, trash.” Goldy wrinkled her nose as she hurried by a pile of the last so thick and noxious it had congealed into sludge. She was nearly past before something pulled at her ankle. She whirled around, ready to scream or fight or whatever it took to get away, but it was only a twig. It stuck out from the sludge and had gotten hooked around her leg, and Goldy let out a sigh of relief before shaking it free.

It didn’t let go. Her kick didn’t pull her leg or the branch free. The pile of sludge shook before it burbled and opened a pair of empty white eyes.

“Would you like your fortune read, dearie?”

The demon spoke slow enough to understand, with gross flaps of its lips and a slimy voice too androgynous to identify. It was alive and undeniably conscious, but still Goldy couldn’t shake the notion of it being an ‘it’ and not a ‘they.’

“No, thank you," she said clearly as she could manage while pulling away. Its grip didn’t weaken.

“Oh, but it won’t cost a cent,” it went on. “And my spells always show the truth. I can give you a glimpse of your future as real as afterlight. Oh,  _ I’m sorry.” _ It let go of her leg, far too late to be polite, but too late for Goldy to run. It had already said enough to keep her in place.

_ Forewarning can only be fought with forewarning, _ the words read,  _ and that’s something you sorely lack. _

“Show me how?” she asked, and it burbled again with laughter.

“Follow me, dearie,” it said and turned around to start sliding its way into the darkness between two buildings.

For a moment Goldy stood still, weighing the risk of being alone with a strange demon against the potential rewards. “Why are you helping me?” The words were loud in her ears—clear, precise, and so laden with tension she might as well have dropped the poker face. Speaking was difficult enough without managing the subtleties of emotion, and the demon laughed again.

“Oh, no, silly girl, no. There's not a drop of demon's magic in the world that's ever been more help than harm. Not unless someone else paid the price. Do you still want to see?”

It didn’t wait for an answer before turning around, and Goldy didn’t give one before following. They didn’t go far. The fortune-teller stopped twenty feet in but far enough from the street to remain unseen. Then, with a sickening squelch, its body began to flex. A bulge appeared beneath its face, and Goldy winced as it popped and a glass orb thumped to the ground. It lifted the orb onto a cardboard box and beckoned Goldy over.

“Your hands,” it said, but Goldy frowned and looked closer. The orb was nearly a foot wide, hollow, and most importantly spotless, not slimy as she’d expected. Only then did she crouch and hold out her hands. “Good, dearie,” it said and took them in its own, holding them against the surface of the glass. “Now look deep inside, through the fog, through the mist. . .”

Wisps of fog appeared inside the glass as it spoke, and it thickened as its words trailed into steady and rhythmic sounds Goldy couldn’t quite place. Chanting, she realized, finally having a sound to connect to the word. She didn’t have long to think about it before the white clouds in the sphere darkened to a deep and sudden red.

“Look deep inside, through the fog, through the mist,” it repeated, then droned on. Goldy had only a moment to wonder if this was what ‘hypnotic’ sounded like before the fog was drawing her in.

The sky resolved first, the bright red of Hell in daytime with the duller red of buildings clawing up at it. The view was of a cityscape, a street, a thoroughfare. Details surfaced through the fog, but slowly, coming in like blurry old photographs if they’d been shades of crimson instead of gray. There were shapes of what might have been people, but before Goldy could make them out, a flash of green appeared at the edge of her vision.

More followed as fog lifted from the sidewalks at the edges of the street. Storefronts flickered with neon—pink and blue and green and more than she’d ever seen in one place. It should have been beautiful, but it was color, and it was movement, and it only made their absence in the rest of the street more evident. Goldy looked and understood. The street wasn’t red with fog but with blood, and the source of it finally became clear.

Bodies lay strewn across the pavement, some of them bearing deep gouges or cut cleanly limb from limb, some torn into ragged shreds, and some twisted and misshapen as if they’d been wrung like a towel and tossed aside. Among them were a horrifying few too distinct not to recognize, as if they’d been pulled straight from her imagination. They were her creations, back in those early days when she cared more for spectacle than plot. Goldy pulled her hands away.

“This is not the future,” she said, slow and steady, careful to keep her tone even and her voice from shaking.

The fortuneteller chuckled. “Of course not, dearie. The future is never set in stone. This is only one possibility.”

Goldy shook her head and struggled for the right words, trying to make her voice work enough to explain herself. “Not the future. A de— dwe— dr-dream. Ol’ ideas from the pas’.” She gave up by the end and made the sign for mixing, hoping it’d be enough to get her point across.

The demon squelched forward in what might have been amusement or interest. "But how can you be sure unless you've seen the whole thing?"

It held its hands out, and after a few seconds of hesitation, Goldy let it guide hers back to the sphere. For all its warnings about the dangers of magic, this was only a simple spell, nothing but a vision in glass. It was more brutal than anything she’d seen in her afterlight and more vivid than anything in her imagination, but it was no more real than either of those. She’d seen worse since her arrival.

The fog returned as the demon fell back into its chant. Goldy watched as once again the red-on-red became a bloodsoaked street. She kept her face impassive as grisly details came into view through gaps in the fog, clearer than should have been possible without magic. Sharp edges of broken bone and blood spatter, gradients of disembodied organs, torn clothes in unfamiliar cuts, and in the center of it all a hint of motion. Pieces of red broke free, moving smoothly and fluidly as if to wave the last of the fog away from the one demon in the street still standing.

It was clear enough why he’d been the last to show. The scene around him was like a rose in bloom, a ribcage unfolding around its heart. Blood dripped from his claws and the ragged edges of his coat as he threw his arms out to the world around him, finally freed.

And Goldy almost laughed. The future, it said? The fortune-teller was a demon. What were the odds it was telling the truth and not simply crafting an illusion? It’d be a simpler magic, and it explained the fog and the chanting. All of it was to lower her guard, leave her suggestible, and draw the images straight from her own subconscious. The man in the middle? Merely a reflection of her own id. Nothing more than a trick—a ploy to convince her to let loose and act on fantasies she’d only ever imagined. A touch more chaos in the world because some demons lived only to see it burn.

Then the man turned his head, and every hint of doubt vanished. It was  _ him. _ Al. But no. It was Alastor now.

It was Alastor, but he was still her Al. His eyes were the same blood red as the carnage around him, but they stared at her with that same squint they’d always had when she came home for the summer. It was  _ his _ joy, his bright-eyed excitement at having so much to share with her and not enough time—at only holding back from grabbing her hand and dragging her after him because she couldn’t talk if he did.

It hardly mattered if she could talk, she’d thought sometimes. Al could hold a conversation all by himself if she let him. She hadn’t, though, because she wanted to be in it. She’d wanted to be a part of his insane, fantastical world. It was like a dream, like a story from one of her books. But now she looked at the red all around him and the red in his eyes like a constant reminder, and she knew it was a nightmare too.

She should have taken the lesson to heart the first time. Imagining pain wasn’t the same as living it. Stories weren’t meant to be real.

She should never have written that letter. It was trying to join Al’s that got her killed in the end.

Alastor held his hand out—palm up, an invitation to dance—and Goldy jerked her palms away. The image scattered and faded to nothing.

“Good day!” she snapped at the fortune-teller, then turned to walk away.

“You’re not going to stay to the end, dearie?” it called after her. “I’ve seen it, you know. I never would have expected you—”

Goldy turned at the end of the alley, and her glare was enough to bring its speech to a halt. “You said it yourself. The future is not set in stone.” She walked on and didn’t dare look back again, not until she’d shut the door to her room and thrown herself onto her bed.

The future wasn’t set in stone. Oh, how she wished it were true, and most of the time it was. Most of the time it flowed like a stream—smooth in places, choppy and turbulent in others. She could dip her toes in or swirl her fingers through the current, and the eddies would carry downstream in waves of endless permutations.

But not his. His future was frozen still—a solid, crystal-clear path for him to follow. Unchanging, inevitable, and bitter cold.

She thought she hadn’t minded. He’d been so warm, more than warm enough to make up for the chill of realization. It’d been blue skies and sunshine the day he told her about Alastor, and she’d skipped home with not just her head but her life full of dreams. It was a mystery, a wonder, a story, and it was  _ real. _ Could other people learn to see their demons? Could she? Ha! For once her handicap might do her a scrap of good! She’d already know sign! And just when she thought she couldn’t possibly be happier, understanding came with a shock of frozen wind down the back of her neck.

That was why Al wanted to learn. Not to be friends with her. To talk to Alastor.

But they’d stayed friends, even after he was fluent. His smiles were wider when she was around. Wider, softer, and more real. Of course they were. She was his only one—the only real person he could share his joys and troubles with—and she knew exactly how much it meant. He’d been her only one too, even if it wasn’t in all the ways she hoped.

Was it all an act? That easy smile wasn’t reserved for her alone. He always wore it when he spoke of Alastor, and with it that distant, enchanted stare. His hands would tense and his signs sharpen with excitement as he looked straight through her to something beyond.

A harsh sound tore through the room, and Goldy jumped, but it had come from her own throat. The knowledge only made it more startling. A sob. Another word she now had a sound for, and she grit her teeth in frustration.

Was that it then? Was that why he’d stayed? He must have known how it would end. He’d hear it as a figurative whisper in his ear from the one he truly cared for. Was that why he hadn’t stopped her even though he’d known from the moment he saw it that her story would get her killed? Because all along he’d been looking past her to a future where she’d be naive enough to die for him?

But he’d still reached out to her, even in the vision, and so the hope still dangled by a single gossamer thread. What if he’d been just as blind?

The alternative was too dreadful to forgive—the thought of him knowing how she’d die and caring so little he’d never shown a single flicker of sorrow.

And the possibility made too much sense to ignore. There’d been plenty Alastor had refused to tell him, plenty of times when Al looked past her to his future and found only fog of his own. He’d put that familiar look on—the ironic smile, simultaneously frustrated and adoring—and turn back to Goldy to regale her with Alastor’s latest riddle.

She’d never see that look again.

Even after he joined her in Hell, even if she cast all her doubts aside and took his hand, he’d never fall for Alastor’s tricks again. He’d  _ be _ Alastor, not her Al. The thought had her gut twisting with sorrow even as her heart leapt in relief.

Two years were enough to accept he was gone. Even if she met him again, they wouldn’t be the same. Her eyes would be clearer, and if God was just, he’d be as monstrous as anyone down here. She’d never see any of his looks again, not like before.

But some days she could still see them, clear as her own reflection. The memory never faded, but slowly the pain did. It was only reasonable. Even if she met Alastor, he wouldn’t be Al. They’d always been separate people in her eyes—her friend and his guardian, shadow, mentor, idol.

And all it took was one spell, one glance, and the lie shattered into pieces. That was  _ his  _ look, his smile, his light in those wrong-but-right eyes. A year ago it would have been a comfort to know he wasn’t lost to her forever. Now it only made it harder to accept what she knew she had to—that she should not only turn away from Alastor’s hand but do everything in her power to never see it again.

Wrong-but-right. Goldy frowned as she thought back to the phrase. It was just as misguided as, ‘her Al.’ There was nothing wrong with Alastor’s eyes. They had the same shape and energy as Al’s, but the red belonged there too. He had always been a cause and connoisseur of misfortune, and soon he’d have the proof stamped on him in indelible crimson. It was no wonder he’d made such great inspiration for her series. He’d always belonged in the pages of a story, with all the pain and peril and heartbreak that followed. She hadn’t understood the first time she’d let herself be drawn in.

She was wiser now, but she could still take the risk, knowingly this time, all for the chance to be by his side again. It’d be a beautiful dream. Power meant freedom and opportunity here in Hell, and he could give her a taste of all it had to offer. He’d sweep her away from her cramped room and show her a world she’d only dared to imagine.

And she’d repay him in turn with something just as precious. She’d be his true only one this time, not just a poor second when Alastor was being uncooperative. They could share each other’s joys, just like before, and delight in being the cause of them. He’d keep pace with her signs and talk circles around her and laugh as she tripped over her ‘r’s trying to catch up. He’d laugh, and she’d finally have a sound to put to his delight. She’d let go of her misgivings and let him spin her around until there was nothing worth caring for but the dance.

But the fortune-teller hadn’t lied. There wasn’t a drop of magic that had ever done more good than harm. The glimpse into the future was no exception, and Alastor would only ever be charming, never well-meaning. Even if he cared enough to take her under his wing and ensure the ills of the world never befell her—even if she looked him in the eye, forgave everything, and refused to move on—those same eyes would be a constant reminder. How long would it be until reality caught up again? How long could she bear to watch the rest of the world pay the price for his storybook life?

She still had time to decide. Al would never let himself get killed so quickly. It’d be years at the least until that day, if it happened at all. There’d be time to consider, time to build her own world and make a new name for herself. Time to live with not just the memory of that smile but the hope of having it again and see if that pain too would fade.

**Author's Note:**

> Ha, I hope nobody thought I'd actually clear up any ambiguity. Pff, nah.
> 
> Thank you to JustASandwich, whose wonderful comments this past week inspired me to revisit this world and spend a few days jotting this down. Sorry it wasn't anything happier, but take it as a sign if you'd like that I'd still love to keep writing in this 'verse occasionally. Hopefully the next time I get inspired won't be so depressing :) 
> 
> Here's [a song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43uOku9OHc0) for this fic that I was listening to while writing.


End file.
